Welcome back to another season of Face Off! Once again, we’ve got a group of aspiring special effects makeup artists hoping to win big. This season’s prizes include a position as guest lecturer at the Makeup Forever Academy in New York and Paris, a 2013 Fiat 500 and $100,000.

This thread will be updated each week what you need to know if you missed the episode.

Week 1: “Make It Reign”

Judges: Glenn Hetrick, Ve Neill, and Neville Page are back for another season.

Special Guest: Michael Westmore will be a mentor for the contestants this season. He is also the guest judge for the first Foundation Challenge. John Rhys-Davies, portrayer of Gimli in Lord of the Rings and Sallah in Indiana Jones, is a guest judge for the Spotlight Challenge.

Foundation Challenge: On the Queen Mary, the contestants must use a crown as inspiration for an original queen make-up that represents them as an artist.

Challenge Winner: Anthony, who will now have immunity from elimination this week.

Spotlight Challenge: Working in teams of two, the artists must create believable fantasy goblin kings based on one of seven terrains. The teams are:

Top Designs: The judges are wild about the mountainous goblin Anthony and Meagan created, with rocks morphing from a humanoid face, and name their makeup the winner. Anthony sweeps the awards this week and receives the top prize overall. Also in top looks are Eric Z. and Autumn, whose incredible detailing of musculature/wood arms in their jungle goblin impressed guest judge John Rhys-Davies immensely, and Eric F. and Jenna's desert goblin, whose dessicated flesh featured a cow skull and a hieroglyph, and was unified with gleaming gold details.

Bottom Designs: In the bottom were Troy and Michael, whose volcanic cone hat and lumpy cloak covered what was unimpressive makeup. Alex & Wayne failed to impress with their alligator-inspired swamp goblin.

Highlights/Lowlights:
• When Michael introduces himself, he quickly reveals that his brother is a former contestant — season two’s Matt Valentine.
• David “House” is dating season two’s Beki Ingram.
• Anthony drops the life cast of the model he and his partner are using, the whole lab falls under a hush.
• Autumn has a melt-down because bald caps weren’t available and she has to make one from scratch.

Winner: Anthony

Eliminated: Troy

Next Week: Superheroes

01-23-2013, 03:28 PM

pikachu

re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 2: “Heroic Proportions”

Spotlight Challenge: While visiting the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, the remaining artisits must create an original DC Comics superhero as well as working on their concept with several DC artists.

Reward: The winning superhero will be featured in the Justice League Dark issue #16.

Top Designs: Despite not finishing a chest and back sculpt, Anthony’s remaining work - sculpture, paint job and silhouette - are strong enough to earn him top prize once again, and this week that means that his character will have a special feature in DC Comics. House's excellent blend of fleshy and metallic components in his work also earned him a spot in the top three, alongside Eric F., who brought his knowledge of anatomy to bear and won big points for it.

Bottom Designs: The bottom looks this week include Katie, whose sculpt was unintentionally grotesque, Meagan, whose sculpt was nowhere near in line with her concept and whose arm pieces were secured with duct tape, and Michael, whose plague doctor character lacked much substance. The judges decide that, because Michael only presented a foam mask, and that was not very well done, he will be the one to go home this week.

Highlights/Lowlights:

• Eric Z. geeks out when he gets to meet and sketch with DC co-publisher Jim Lee at ComicCon.
• Anthony discovers he spent too much time sculpting the back and chest pieces, and can't free his pieces from the molds in time. He has to shed these elements from his character
• Alam runs into trouble when the ornate glass shards she created for the back piece for Dark Shard falls clean off her model on the way to last looks.
• Michael struggles to construct a long nose on the mark of his character, starting over several times and never quite getting it right.

Winner: Anthony

Eliminated: Michael

Next Week: Ice Demons

01-30-2013, 12:23 PM

pikachu

re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 3: “When Hell Freezes Over”

Spotlight Challenge: The artists must each create a demon, later informed to give it a "Hell Freezes over" look.

Top Designs: The judges take issue with Eric F. and Wayne’s paint job, but the three-foot horns and sculptural technique that allows the actor to see out of the mouthpiece more than make up for it. Also lauded is Anthony and Alam’s work, which manages to be beautiful, divine, and demonic all at once. Anthony’s work on the face sculpt includes details that enhance one another and bring a fresh take to the challenge, bringing him his fourth straight win.

Bottom Designs: The roughness of Autumn’s sculpture, among other things, put her and Alex’s demon in the bottom. The judges were also disappointed not only in the result that Jenna and Katie brought forward, but also in their time management, knowing, as they did, that Jenna’s hand would be a heavy weight on their productivity. Their paint job was also flat, but it was the walker arms, which wound up looking totally disconnected from the rest of the makeup. Since Katie designed the walkers, she is the artist to go home.

Highlights/Lowlights:

• House and Meagan clash over how to make their two-headed snake demon.
• Alex is less than confident about her partner, Autumn’s, sculpting skills
• No one’s having a harder time than Jenna, who has a tumor in her hand that makes it by turns numb and full of shooting pain. She and her partner, Katie, press forward as best they can, with Katie attempting what’s called a walker - that is, a device that allows the actor to appear as if their walking on all fours - but Jenna finds sculpting almost impossible.
• On application day, Wayne is stressed because he and Eric have put so much effort into sculpture and animatronics that their paintjob will suffer, a fault he’s been called out on before - and after everything, the electronics fail.

Winner: Anthony

Eliminated: Katie

Next Week: A sweet challenge based on candy

02-12-2013, 03:44 PM

pikachu

Re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 4: “Eye Candy”

Spotlight Challenge: The artists must use real candy when making confection-inspired creatures.

Top Designs: The contestants meet guest judge Will Cotton, a painter whose design work wowed viewers of Katy Perry's "California Gurls" video. Alam is particularly excited because the plastic-like look of her candy girl is very Katy Perry-esque, and her optimism proves well-founded when the judges place her in the top looks. Also praised are Kris's candy-infused goblin and House's creature, the mouth-bearing stomach of which is hailed all around as a showstopper. Ultimately, Kris's attention to detail pays off, and he's thrilled to break Anthony's streak and get a win.

Bottom Designs: Unfortunately, things aren't so great for Autumn, Alex, and Jenna, who all end up in the bottom looks. In the end, the judges send Alex home, citing the lack of makeup work she did relative to the other contestants, and some sloppy execution in laying her edges. Alex isn't ready to go home just yet, but walks out of the makeup room, kit in tow and ready to face the future.

Highlights/Lowlights:

• McKenzie brings the contestants to the Federal Bar to tell them about their Foundation Challenge for this week. When she introduces the guest judge, John Myatt, as winner of the World Beard and Mustache Championship, they know they're going to be "laying hair," or making a fake beard, but when they see that their models are all women, the competition takes a different turn. Eric Z. wins the Bearded Lady challenge, and hence immunity in the Spotlight Challenge, with special mention going to Alex for her beard's color and curls.
• In the lab, McKenzie stands before bright mounds of colorful candy and tells the artists that their challenge is to create a character that incorporates the delicious sweets behind her.
• Autumn is totally bummed by the assignment. She's thrilled when Michael Westmore drops by and gives her some advice on how to make her gummy bear character look more like a bear and less like a "cat-pig," in her words.
• Jenna is really slowed down by her hand, which is numb for most of the three-day challenge, but she won't let it stop her: When the mannequin in her mold breaks, she finds herself another mannequin and keeps on going.
• On elimination day, the artists reflect on the Foundation Challenge, with Alex wishing she had won.
• Jenna continues to struggle, unable to airbrush properly thanks to the lack of feeling in her hand.

Top Designs: At the reveal stage, Eric F. and Kris are stunned, along with everyone else, that they managed to build a creature as huge as they did and get it all done and looking good in time. House and Wayne also feel good about their creation, especially after the judges praise their concept of having one head as a puppet that can interact with the other head, and their weaving in of the redwood texture from the original tree inspiration. Although the work of Wayne and House, as well as Anthony and Autumn, was excellent, it didn't compare to the scope and scale of Eric F. and Kris's giant. Since it was Eric F.'s concept, the judges rule him top winner, an announcement that brings tears to his eyes.

Bottom Designs: The judges were less thrilled with Alam and Eric Z.'s concept of having two heads on the bottoms of the giant's feet, since they wound up looking cartoonish, and Jenna and Meagan's giant had obvious problems that were disappointing to all involved. Of the bottom looks, it's clear that Jenna's physical condition is making her no longer able to compete, and that means she will be sent home. The other contestants have great affection for Jenna and it's a tearful goodbye, but Jenna bears it bravely and knows that when her health is better, she will be that much stronger for this experience.

Highlights/Lowlights:

• At Six Flags Magic Mountain, there is a giant redwood tree, and it is there that McKenzie meets the contestants with a very special guest: Bryan Singer. Not only has Singer directed several fantastical movies, such as X-Men and Superman Returns, but he's also helming the upcoming epic, Jack the Giant-Slayer. Now the redwood comes into context: the artists, in teams of two, will have to create their very own two- or three-headed giant. The competition is getting fiercer by the week, and the knowledge that Singer will be the guest judge on this week's challenge cranks the pressure up even more.
• Eric Fox, for once, thinks literally, and he and his partner Kris set about building a two-headed giant around their model. His head will be the only part of him protruding from the 10-foot tall makeup, making it look as though the monster is carrying a very small Jack. At one point, Fox even sketches out the design on the floor, just to get a true sense of how massive it will be.
• Anthony is struggling with his partner, Autumn, who seems unaware of the travails her partner's going through.
• Jenna and Meagan conceptualized a giant with one head growing on top of the next, on top of the next, but Jenna's hand hurts so badly that she falls way behind schedule. Jenna does her best to pick up the slack in the stressful conditions, but when it comes time to run their mold, it doesn't cure properly. On application day, the upper head sags under its own damp weight, and their concept falls apart along with it. They salvage part of it by cutting the face of and gluing it to the model's chest, but Jenna is also unable to help fabricate the costume, and the overall look is unfinished.

Winner: Eric F.

Eliminated: Jenna

Next Week: Insect Invasion

03-07-2013, 04:04 PM

pikachu

Re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 6: “Bugging Out”

Foundation Challenge: The artists must re-imagine a classic female storybook character as a bad girl.

Spotlight Challenge: The artists each chose an image which later turned out to be microscopic photographs of bugs. They then must create a make-up of their chosen insect while incorporating the microscopic details from their photos.

Top Designs: Wayne is working on a firefly character, and makes the stellar choices to illuminate the glowing body from within, build antennae that the actor can manipulate with his face, and sculpt the facial prosthetic in such a way that the actor's eyes are hidden, but his vision unobstructed. Kris, who couldn't find close-up images of his butterfly's abdomen, took a chance and created his own vision for that section, complete with an inspired paint job.

The judges feel that Wayne's design was genius, but since he made the regrettable mistake of leaving a key element at the lab and thus not completing the challenge, they award the top prize to Kris, who also had a knockout concept.

Bottom Designs: Anthony, Meagan, and Alam find themselves on the bottom, and when Anthony jokingly promises to do better next time, Glenn gives him a sharp rebuke that there may not be a next time. After deliberation, the judges decide that Alam must go home – her color choices seemed to be almost random and many of her design elements were incoherent. But surviving to the sixth challenge is no mean feat and, as Alam says, a great way to start a career.

Highlights/Lowlights:

• When the artists next walk into the lab, they see McKenzie standing in front of several monitors displaying brightly colored patterns. At random, they choose a pattern, but in classic Face Off style, there's a twist – these images were electron microscope scans of various bugs, and the assignment is to create an insect hybrid incorporating both the insect and the microscopic image.
• Autumn is thrilled to have a funky beetle and moves ahead with inspiration
• Anthony, who chose an ant, finds his imagination dry for this subject. He does what he can, but he knows from the start that he'll be in bottom looks.
• Meagan is worried about making her character – a highly colored moth – look too much like a butterfly, so she goes heavy on the fur, but when it comes time to paint the wings, her fear gets in her way and she loses sight of her design.

Winner: Kris

Eliminated: Alam

Next Week: Werewolves from another planet

03-07-2013, 04:52 PM

pikachu

Re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 7: “Howl at the Moon”

Foundation Challenge: Working in teams of two, the artists must apply zombie makeups on twenty people.

• Guest Judge: Gale Anne Hurd
• Reward: Immunity
• Winner: Meagan

Spotlight Challenge: Working in teams of two, the artists must create alien werewolves from one of the other planets from our solar system.

Top Designs: Meagan and House choose Mars as their planet and their wolf lands in the top looks. However, it is Wayne and Kris's collaboration, a tall, ice-camouflaged monster, that earns the top seat. Kris's back sculpture is particularly innovative, and he is this week's winner.

Bottom Designs: Another surprise week lands golden boy Anthony in the bottom when he, along with his partner Eric F., bites off more than he can chew and winds up with a disproportionate jumble from Saturn. But standing below them in the judges' eyes are Eric Z. and Autumn.

Highlights/Lowlights:
• This week’s foundation challenge was one of the toughest in Face Off history. With two and a half hours to create 20 zombies, that’s about 7 minutes per zombie.
• The contestants’ task in the spotlight challenge is to build a werewolf from one of the other planets in our solar system that have moons.
• Meagan plans to use this immunity by letting her partner in the Spotlight Challenge, House, lead the design and support him as best she can. She blocks off the sculpture and lays the bright red hair, letting House fine tune the sculpt into a snub-nosed hybrid astronaut, a story made complete by a helmet held in the model's hand.
• Nearly instantly in their relationship, it was clear to Eric that if they were going to have anything to show the judges, he would have to capitulate to Autumn in order to avoid arguments and move forward. Yet even with this concession, Autumn became furious at Eric's seeming laziness, blaming him in front of McKenzie and Mr. Westmore in the lab, and then in front of the judges at the reveal stage. It is there that the conflict between her and her partner rises to the surface when Eric tells the judges how little he had to do with the makeup, a revelation that knocks Autumn back.
• Although she's surprised at Eric's statement, the judges see it as no excuse for steamrolling over his input - in fact, her ignorance makes the offense even worse. Eric's not off the hook, either, since he didn't make his point sufficiently clear to her, but the judges are most frustrated with Autumn and without words of farewell, eliminate her from the competition.

Winner: Kris

Eliminated: Autumn

Next Week: Discovering a new species that glows in the dark

03-07-2013, 05:28 PM

pikachu

Re: Face Off Season 4 State-of-Play Thread *No comments please*

Week 8: “It’s Better in the Dark”

Spotlight Challenge: The artists must create a never-before-seen creature that might live in any of Earth’s eco systems: sea, mountains, desert, etc. The final creation must contain two distinct characteristics, one that looks good under normal light and a second that becomes visible only under ultra violet light.

Top Designs: Anthony makes the best use of the bioluminescent element of the challenge. Judge Jon Landau, producer of "Avatar," says the creature could fit right in on Pandora. This makeup is in the top looks along with Wayne's, a truly original, crab-like man with virtuosic sculpting. It's Anthony's versatility that brings him to the win, and he's grateful and relieved.

Bottom Designs: In the bottom were House, whose fish-woman lacked finesse, Meagan, who obscured a decent sculpture with confusing paint work, and Eric Z., whose character had a very weak concept. Meagan is the first contestant to be eliminated, and Jon Landau commends her for having perhaps the only makeup that had a land-based design, and notes the imagination that that displays. Second to go home is Eric Z., and Glenn bids him well before McKenzie asks him to pack up his makeup kit.

Highlights/Lowlights:
• After an inspiration session at Leo Carrillo State Park, where McKenzie has just told them that their assignment is to create a whole new species that has one paint job in visible light and a completely different, bioluminescent look in ultraviolet light, the artists return to the lab to see perhaps the worst news ever: It's a Double Elimination week.
• Despite the pressure, everyone's excited to get to work, except maybe for Meagan, who is trying to focus despite being very ill with food poisoning. Her attempts to focus become increasingly futile, and when the room starts to spin, it's time for her to go to the hospital.
• Anthony is nervous, since he's been in bottom looks for two weeks running - it seems his winning streak earlier on jinxed him!
• Meagan returns on the second day with a mountain of work ahead of her and not feeling up to the challenge.
• Wayne decides that this will be the week that he manages his time well and delivers the paint job that the judges have been asking for all along.
• Eric F. decides to do a muted paint job for his visible look, and show the full anatomy in the UV light, but this gives him a ton of work, and he's running out of time at the end of day two, but manages to get the molds done.
• On application day, no one's feeling secure, and up to last looks the stress and activity levels are at an all-time high. The models walk onto the reveal stage, and very few looks actually have complete paint jobs for both kinds of light.